SAN BERNARDINO SHOOTINGS; Multiple Attackers, Many Baffling Details Rubin, Joel; Serna, Joseph
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SAN BERNARDINO SHOOTINGS; Multiple attackers, many baffling details Rubin, Joel; Serna, Joseph . Los Angeles Times ; Los Angeles, Calif. [Los Angeles, Calif]03 Dec 2015: B.3. ProQuest document link ABSTRACT The assault rifles used, the coordinated nature of the attack and the shooters' ability to escape before police arrived pointed to a level of preparedness and professionalism that runs against a typical mass shooting scenario, Astor said. FULL TEXT As soon as the first, frantic reports of a shooting came in, one detail above others worried police. Witnesses said multiple people had stormed into a conference room at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino on Wednesday and opened fire. The fact that more than one assailant appeared to have taken part in the massacre told law enforcement officials that something unusual was at play, even if they didn't know anything else at first about the shooting that left 14 people dead and more wounded. In the scores of mass shootings that have occurred in the U.S. over the last 15 years, nearly all of them have involved an attacker acting alone. A recent FBI analysis of 160 "active shooter" incidents from 2000 to 2013, in which assailants were "actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people," found that only two were carried out by two or more people working in tandem. In 2011, a 22-year-old man and one or more unidentified shooters opened fire at a house party in Queens, N.Y. The man had been at the party earlier that night but left after arguing with others at the event and returned shortly afterward. A year later, two men fired handguns in the streets of Tulsa, Okla., killing three people and wounding two, according to the FBI analysis. By nightfall Wednesday in San Bernardino, a man and a woman had been shot dead by police and were identified as suspects in the killings at the Inland Regional Center. Officials had yet to publicly explain what might have motivated the attack. Ron Avi Astor, a behavior health professor and mass shooting expert at USC, said the details of the shooting that PDF GENERATED BY SEARCH.PROQUEST.COM Page 1 of 417 had surfaced so far raised more questions than they answered. On one hand, Astor said, reports that one of the shooters had attended a holiday gathering of county health workers at the conference hall and left after having an argument of some sort pointed to the possibility that the shooting was rooted in a workplace grudge. But the police account that more than one person took part in the shooting didn't fit with the idea that the killings were part of an attempt to settle one man's scores, Astor said. "You don't just go home to a friend or family member, hand them a rifle and say, 'Come help me,' " Astor said. "There had to be discussion and planning beforehand about carrying out something like this." The question of whether the suspects were terrorists driven by religious or political ideology loomed over the investigation. David Bowdich, the region's top FBI official, said at a news conference Wednesday night that investigators had reason to believe it may be a factor. That possibility further muddied the water, Astor said. The assault rifles used, the coordinated nature of the attack and the shooters' ability to escape before police arrived pointed to a level of preparedness and professionalism that runs against a typical mass shooting scenario, Astor said. And yet, he said, a holiday party for local civil servants is not a that carries the symbolic weight terrorists look for when planning their attacks. "The target is a very soft target. The whole thing seems strange," he said. "What meaning does the place have and why kill so many people there? "There's more to this story than what we know right now," he said. Although it is rare to encounter multiple shooters, police train for the possibility, said John Incontro, police chief in San Marino and a former Los Angeles police captain who oversaw the department's SWAT unit. "This is exactly what we train for," he said. -- [email protected] [email protected] DETAILS Subject: Shootings; Massacres; Mass murders PDF GENERATED BY SEARCH.PROQUEST.COM Page 2 of 417 Company / organization: Name: Federal Bureau of Investigation--FBI; NAICS: 922120 Identifier / keyword: SAN BERNARDINO (CA) MASS MURDERS SHOOTINGS Publication title: Los Angeles Times; Los Angeles, Calif. Pages: B.3 Publication year: 2015 Publication date: Dec 3, 2015 Section: California; Part B; Metro Desk Publisher: Tribune Interactive, LLC Place of publication: Los Angeles, Calif. Country of publication: United States, Los Angeles, Calif. Publication subject: General Interest Periodicals--United States ISSN: 04583035 Source type: Newspapers Language of publication: English Document type: News ProQuest document ID: 1738673015 Document URL: http://libproxy.csun.edu/login?url=https://search.proquest.com/docview/17386730 15?accountid=7285 Copyright: (Copyright (c) 2015 Los Angeles Times) Last updated: 2017-11-22 Database: Global Newsstream LINKS Linking Service Horror in San Bernardino; The U.S. infatuation with guns, inflamed by the ludicrous stances of the NRA, is suicidal. PDF GENERATED BY SEARCH.PROQUEST.COM Page 3 of 417 Publication info: Los Angeles Times ; Los Angeles, Calif. [Los Angeles, Calif]03 Dec 2015: A.18. ProQuest document link ABSTRACT The Supreme Court lent credibility to the fully-armed-America crowd in its 2008 Heller decision, which held that the 2nd Amendment guarantees an individual's right to bear arms for "traditionally lawful purposes," such as self- protection in the home. FULL TEXT Fourteen dead and 17 wounded in San Bernardino, according to the early reports. And that follows just five days after the attack on a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs, Colo., in which three people died and nine were wounded. A month earlier, nine people were slain at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Ore. In August, eight people were shot dead in a house outside Houston. In June, nine people were gunned down at a prayer meeting in a Charleston, S.C., church. In May, nine people were killed in a shootout among police and bikers in Waco, Texas. And on it goes. President Obama said after the Planned Parenthood attack that "this is not normal." But sadly it is becoming altogether too normal in the United States. On Wednesday the president added that the U.S. has a pattern of mass shootings "that has no parallel anywhere else in the world." It will be days, most likely, before sufficient details and context are known to understand the atrocious act of violence that occurred Wednesday at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino. But it is not too soon to say that the common element in the vast majority of these mass killings -- and in the daily parade of violence across the country -- is the easy access to firearms. From 1998 to 2013, an average of 11,500 homicides each year were committed with guns in the U.S., according to data compiled by GunPolicy.org. For the last few years, there have been more guns than people in the United States, by several counts. When these mass murders occur, the instinct is to take a deep dive into the details to learn as much as is possible about who did what and why. That's important to the investigation of the specific incident, obviously, but it misses the bigger picture, which is that such attacks have become so routine they have almost lost their ability to shock. Phrases such as "active shooter" and "shelter in place" are now part of our lexicon. The Department of Homeland Security has posted a webinar for schools and churches on how to respond to shooters. Enough. This nation's infatuation with guns -- inflamed by the ludicrous stances of the NRA, and abetted by Congress' fear of that powerful but irresponsible group -- is suicidal. There are too many guns, too easily obtained. Often they are in the hands of those who should not have them at all, such as the mentally ill. It's absurd that one of the richest, freest, and most advanced societies in world history endures such a scourge with such equanimity. But there is hope. A Gallup poll in October found that 55% of Americans support stronger gun control measures, and other surveys have found that even a majority of NRA members support mandatory background checks -- something the NRA itself has assiduously opposed. There is broad political support for stronger laws to address the nation's gun addiction, but gun control advocates have so far been unable to counter PDF GENERATED BY SEARCH.PROQUEST.COM Page 4 of 417 the money and organizational heft of the NRA. It's obscene that a single interest group is able to endanger an entire nation's safety. The Supreme Court lent credibility to the fully-armed-America crowd in its 2008 Heller decision, which held that the 2nd Amendment guarantees an individual's right to bear arms for "traditionally lawful purposes," such as self- protection in the home. It's a wrongheaded interpretation of wording that for decades was rightly understood to mean that organized military units, such as the National Guard, have a right to keep and bear arms. We're stuck with the Heller ruling for now. But thankfully, the court also said the right to gun ownership was not absolute, and that the nation's history of gun ownership has also been one of gun regulation. So let's get at it. There is no need for civilians to own military-style weapons, or magazines that hold large numbers of cartridges that maximize carnage.